FlexFlight Project

 

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Nonlinear Flexibility Effects on Flight Dynamics and Control of Next-Generation Aircraft

 

Da Ronch, A., Tantaroudas, N.D., and Badcock, K.J. (University of Liverpool, Liverpool, U.K.)

 

Simpson, R., Wang, T., Wynn, A., Hesse, H., and Palacios, R.N. (Imperial College, London, U.K.)

 

Goulart, P. (Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Zurich, Switzerland)

 

Airbus UK, BAE Systems, DSTL, QinetiQ

 

UK Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC)

 

Very Flexible Aircraft

UAV configuration - pressure coefficient distribution computed using the CFD solver of the University of Liverpool

 

UAV configuration - pressure coefficient distribution computed using the CFD solver of the University of Liverpool.

Flexible multi-beam, coupling effects of structural and rigid body dynamics

 

Flexible multi-beam configuration subject to a set of follower and dead loads to investigate the coupling effect of structural and rigid-body dynamics due to large gyroscopic motion.

HALE UAV aircraft, effect of flexibility on aircraft stability characteristics

HALE UAV aircraft, effect of flexibility on aircraft stability characteristics

 

Flight dynamics response of a HALE UAV configuration following an initial roll perturbation to demonstrate the effect of flexibility on the aircraft stability characteristics: unstable rigid aircraft (blue) compared to a very flexible stable configuration (red).

Geometrically-nonlinear deformations of a HALE UAV configuration

Geometrically-nonlinear deformations of a HALE UAV configuration

 

Geometrically-nonlinear deformations of a HALE UAV configuration for varying follower distributed load on wing and tail.